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https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/teaching-kids-about-thanksgiving-or-columbus-they-deserve-the-real-story>
"In the season four premiere of ABC’s hit sitcom “Black-ish,” Dre, a
charismatic dad played by Anthony Anderson, is distraught over his children’s
performance in a school play about Christopher Columbus.
Dre’s daughter, dressed as a native American, recites arguably the most famous
jingle about the so-called Admiral of the Seas, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the
ocean blue,” while his son, with a welcoming smile and upbeat attitude, says,
“I’m Christopher Columbus, and I discovered America.”
Dre objects, saying, “Fake history, right?” The kids break into a fantasy
sequence to rap about what actually transpired. “Everything you know about
Columbus is a joke,” Dre’s daughter sings. “He didn’t discover America—prepare
to get woke.”
My juniors in American History felt “woke” after reading about Columbus in
author James W. Loewen’s book, “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your
American History Textbook Got Wrong.” Not only did Columbus never set foot in
the United States, they learn, but he also wasn’t the first to discover that
the world was round. On that front, the ancient Greeks beat him to the punch by
about 2,000 years.
Moreover, while it’s fair to give Columbus credit for opening our hemisphere to
Western Europe, Leif Erikson, the Norse explorer, likely landed in present-day
Canada hundreds of years earlier — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg with
respect to who in the “Old World” crossed the Atlantic first."
Via Anubis2814 and Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
